Economic Development Corp. - Regular Meeting

We will call to order the city of New Braunfels Economic Development Corporation meeting, Thursday, March 19 at 5PM. Miss Boggs, will you please call roll.

Director Elrod?

Here.

Director Campos?

Here.

Director Austin?

Here.

Director Thompson? Here. Director Hines? Here. I'm sorry, President Hines? Director Hammonds?

Here. Never would have noticed. Also, you Mayor Mayor Neil Leonard for joining us this evening. And we move on to item three, approval of the 02/19/2026 regular meeting minutes.

I've had a chance to review the minutes. I move to approve.

Second.

I have a motion from director Austin and a second from director Campos. All those in I to the the the progress we in We very pleased

President Hines. The sales tax data for the month of January as we begin the calendar year is off to a very promising start, as the graph illustrates, to drill down into that a little bit more. Again, as we've been talking about, we'll have a bifurcated analysis of our sales taxes for the next year or so. Overall, sales taxes increased by 32.9%. Again, massive number.

We expect that as the HD Supply revenue comes on board, again, starting in mid November. However, you remove that HE Supply revenue and look at the net for January, we still had a growth rate of about 11.4%. So one of the largest January is on record for us. And so again, like I said, certainly a positive start to the calendar year and fourth month of this fiscal year. Again, your updated revenue projections through fiscal year thirty, changes, or you should notice some changes on your current commitment slide.

We went ahead and modified all of your approved commitments, project expenditures to align to your recently adopted strategic priorities. And so that is the way that we will reflect this moving forward. Again, you can see there is and just as a reminder, this only includes those projects that have been formally approved by the EDC and the City Council. And then a new addition to your treasurer's report, which we will update on a monthly basis, and you'll see this every single month. We'll we'll reconcile the projected expenditures for the current fiscal year, but we'll also illustrate it for you on a project by project basis.

And so again, as we get closer to the end of the fiscal year, that's when we start to see these numbers shift as maybe some of these costs get pushed out to the next fiscal year. But I really felt that it was important that we kind of go back to you all seeing some project by project detail even though we are really looking at it from a five year horizon, but just to have a good handle on what are we expected to spend this fiscal year and on hopefully, is a value to you, and we'll certainly be able to answer any questions that you may have about these expenditures. But again, the only time you should really see these shift is when either we either when a project is over, when we expect a project expense to shift to the next fiscal year, or when a new project comes on board. And again, of course, the graph that kind of ties it all together, your revenues, expenditures, and forecasted expenditures through fiscal year thirty. With that, happy to take any questions.

Questions from the board? Okay. Mr. Warner. Appreciate it. Appreciate it. Item six, presentation discussion on possible projects categorized by enhancing sense of place quality of life, strategic priority three, and business recruitment and retention, strategic priority four. Mr. Jewell?

Good evening, President Hines. Jeff Jewell, Economic and Community Development Director. I'll be handling a couple of these items and Gary can answer some questions about any of those in particular. Think Michelle can also provide some commentary about any of them. But this is just keeping with the initiative and the strategic adopted priorities.

There's no action tonight. This is really just presentation and discussion around the the two last strategic priorities, the sense of place and quality of life, potential investments, as well as the business recruitment and retention. I want to talk just highlight what this project, Springfed Pool and Land 0 House. This is a very unique asset and has a rich history in the history of Land 0 Park. So the opportunity to enhance and repurpose this building to promote tourism recreation as well as to serve residents.

There really is no cost for this. Really the next step for this project would be a feasibility and master plan. The Comal River is one of the city's most unique cultural, economic and heritage assets. But this particular we think it's been kind of managed silos over time. And a master plan will allow us to protect the resource and improve the user experience and strategically grow the economic value that it generates.

It's really about tying together the entire river as a system and managing it as a system and really building on the opportunities that the river has to benefit New Braunfels just beyond kind of from a tourism basis. But really exploring that and developing, implementing, coordinating strategies for sustainable recreation, safety, quality of life, infrastructure and ongoing stewardship. And to continue to have make sure that this is an asset that in fifty years it continues to provide and yield benefits for the entire community.

Before you move on. Yes. Something came to mind. There was a question as to whether of the property or NBU was supposed to do that. I'm under the impression that NBU is obligated to do that, but I don't know for sure.

That is a good question, Director Campos. I'm not sure. Because there's different ownership on the Worsfest grounds itself between the city and Worsfest and potentially MBU. I couldn't answer that question. We could look into that.

That we have or we should consider should include that to clarify that to make sure that we maintain the property?

Right.

Is that the spillway? Yeah, right at the worst case. That's MBU. I know MBU was supposed to maintain it, but the ownership was a big question and who does spend the money to maintain it. Would that be included in this master plan?

I think so. We haven't really discussed. I mean, when we say the Kumail River, think we've been from really from the springs from the lake from where it originates down to the confluence with Guadalupe. And so looking at that entire corridor as a way to, like I said, adjust and refine and enhance the economic and community value that the river does have. We've identified, and you all know about this, kind of some of the infrastructure improvements, refurbishment of the tube shoot, some of the Weir Dam improvements.

But this would be taking kind of a very comprehensive look. And I think that the potential redevelopment of the Dittlinger Mill has kind of spurred this conversation about what kinds of contributions and enhancements can the river can we continue to make on the river to continue to benefit New Braunfels residents. Whether that means to continue to enhance its connectivity potential to maybe look at opportunities for trails, access points, lighting, signage, overlooks to making the stronger connections from the river into downtown adjacent districts. I mean, the 2010 downtown implementation plan did identify the Comal River. Said you all have a very, I think New Braunfels is incredibly unique really in the country that it has a river running through its downtown.

And we've always I think kind of thought about how can we better connect it into the downtown environment and continue to build on it. The scope of which I think could be for further discussion, it's just one of the project ideas that begins to set the table for future planning and infrastructure investments in this asset. Kind of really closely tied to this, we talk about place making quite a bit. And place making is really the intentional design of management of public spaces to create environments where people want to be and where economic activity follows. Many of these investments end up being in the right of way.

So from a statutory perspective, we believe that a lot of these improvements are allowed under state law, streets and other related improvements. Of course, we would check with the city attorney's office on any this. But we think about place making as economic infrastructure. We invest in roads to move vehicles and cars throughout the town. And so investing in places to attract people because people are what drive the economy.

It's understood pretty broadly that place making efforts increased well times, increased the amount of time that people spend in a certain place. The design and feel of a place leads leads to greater economic activity, leads to increased property values, etcetera. And so a $2,000,000 streetscape improvement can yield pretty significant increase in property and sales tax values in and around that area. So it's just something that we continue to explore. And frankly, we think it's in order to stay competitive in the economic development world.

Companies follow people, people want to be in places that they want to spend time at. And so always continuing to reinvest back into making New Braunfels a great place to hang out and spend time at. Staying along this sense of place and quality of life. In 2016, the Economic Development Corporation, actually maybe it was 15, funded that athletic fields master plan that really formed the basis. That master plan has really been followed to a T.

It talked about the refurbishment and artificial turf replacement at New Braunfels Middle School and at Oak Run Middle School in order to expand the sports field potential. The sports complex funding now that Zipp Sports Park is going to be opening up at the May. That project is really nearing completion. So from the next it was really about H E B soccer fields, Camp Komel athletic fields to continue to reinvest into these community assets and continue to improve upon them. And so those items were identified.

Again, they haven't really been looked at or studied in over a decade at the time, but they were identified as kind of the next step in the sequence of athletic field improvements. The next improvement is really kind of closely I think related to some of that place making, but identifying the Zinc Street gateway intersection which would reconfigure Zinc Bridge and Seguin into a roundabout. This provides very practical operational and safety improvements on an area that has been identified as very high risk and injury prone in the street's network. But also it really provides an opportunity to establish a distinct entry point into the downtown and improves aesthetics, etcetera. And so there's kind of been a high level plan that has been looked at here.

You can kind of see what this could potentially look like. Moving on to business recruitment and retention. One of the items that we've identified was the airport loan that the EDC provided for a 1,200,000 actually, a 2,200,000.0 a little over $2,000,000 to the airport about five to six years ago. Half of that was converted into a grant, the other half was converted into a loan that provided for the extension of the taxiway that has now almost been completely built out with six new hangars. And so the airport makes $129,000 annual payment, so this item would forgive the balance of that loan, which is about $700,000 and free up that cash flow for the airport to continue to invest either in expanded staff in order to meet the demands that are there today or continue to make investments either with TxDOT as a funding partner or in future projects out there.

The River Mill and West End are targeted redevelopment areas. And so we don't have a lot of definition around what the extent of these public infrastructure improvements look like at this time, except that we know that they're going to be needed. We have some conceptual designs specifically in and around the West End area. As you all know, the kind of the reconstruction, I guess, the reimagining of West San Antonio and Zinc Street not Zinc Street, I'm sorry, Spur Street, I'm sorry, has been approved by the Ampo and the Ampo with about a $19,000,000 commitment there. And so moving that project to final design would allow for that project match for that project funding from Ampo to be realized.

With the River Mill project, we'd like to approach this in kind of more of the maybe a conceptual phase first with some of the public infrastructure in and around the project and then continuing to work with that developer to identify what other kinds of improvements and investments that they're going to be making as well. We would recommend that any investments in and around River Mill kind of coincide with private investments that are made by that developer. For the industrial site readiness study, I think this was something that Michelle and her team have identified. But we've identified having sites bringing forward potential sites and kind of clearing them through some level of utility readiness, environmental reviews, kind of accelerating timelines around sites that they can bring and put forward in front candidates to develop those sites is something that we've identified as something. We're still working, I think, on developing the scope around this project.

But this is a very common thing in order to bring a handful of sites ready for future development. You all got a presentation on this a couple of months ago on the Accelerator Project. I'm not going to talk too much about that, but we'll have some more conversation about that in the upcoming months in order to expand on the entrepreneurial ecosystem and provide some resources to those startups and to those promising companies that we know that are here in New Braunfels, but again, providing greater connections and tools for them to continue to expand. And of course, providing continued support for business expansion relocation. Michelle and her team are all very active in working with existing companies.

We all know Continental, Almovio, an existing business retention and expansion project. D Tech's existing business retention and then Lefco, a new traction. Traction. So you'll be hearing actually about some new projects here in the coming months. And so just continuing to focus on that. With that, I'll answer any questions.

I had a quick question about the proposed round about on Zinc Bridge and Seguin. Have you, I assume, talked with Saints Peter and Paul about their thoughts on that?

I'll let Gary answer that question.

Yes. We've met both with the Saints Peter and Paul, the tax office, Comal County, and then the local businesses there. Super excited about the project. Because we talked about access, their current school operations, and they understand this is definitely a safety issue for them. They really don't want anybody making a left because of the site distance, the speed of travel. So we've worked through that process. We've also worked through the process of the state. This is a state highway. And transitioning a regular intersection to this is definitely something that we want to get them in front of. They're supportive of it as well with transitioning that intersection to a roundabout.

I do want to note that we've submitted it for grant funding. Unfortunately, weren't successful. We're very close. But this coming up year we plan to submit it again for grant funding. And if we do get that awarded then we'll be looking for project development and then also construction match if there's anything associated with it.

Was just thinking that a great deal of the traffic comes from there pick up and drop off times.

Bonus to that too is larger vehicles can turn back towards downtown and have to back up and back up traffic.

That's one of the biggest benefits we identified. That way if there is a high load vehicle, they can just make a turn and you see that the space it's able to accommodate larger vehicles. It's a roll up curve type of interior and they can just go the other direction before stopping backing up and really disrupting traffic flow.

I have one point. I don't know if I'm out of place here, but I attended the plaza rather the parade this past weekend. And one of I I I went and gotten I got on the plaza. I haven't done that for years, but I got on the plaza and I noticed that we have Saint Augustine grass on the plaza. And that's introduced grass here in New Braunfels.

We're doing away with it. If we're looking at enhancement, I think we should at least consider looking into the Lady Bird has a new seed that we're using that's multiple plants actually and doing away with requires a lot of watering and we're trying to avoid that.

Thanks for that comment, Director Campos. Actually, appropriately, I think we actually have a committee that's going to be looking at some improvements to Plaza, our parking revenue advisory committee that's actually meeting on Monday and getting a presentation on potential improvements. Landscaping improvements in and around downtown is something that they are looking at doing. And so Plaza improvements in particular were some of the things I think that were being presented to them. And so we'll make sure to mention that as well, if we can make a note of that.

Any other questions or comments from the Board? All right, thank you Mr. Jewell. We will up this up to a public comment if anybody wants to comment on this presentation. Seeing none, close public comment and we move on to executive session.

In accordance with the Texas government code section 551.071, the board reserves the right to retire into executive session concerning the items listed on the this agenda to consult with its attorney. In addition, the board may convene in executive session on any of the following items with any final action being taken in open session. A, deliberate issues regarding economic development negotiations in accordance with section 551.087 of the Texas government code. One, project shoot, two, project thread, three, project icon, four, green sixteen, five, generator, six, project CASA, and seven, Texas Technical College. And with that, we will adjourn into executive session.

Session with no action taken place. And with that, we are adjourned at 05:58PM.